Is that burbling water I hear? One can almost imagine...

See that old hot tub in the background? Looks a little worse for wear, no?

Well, look what we've been up to:

Last weekend we cleaned the wood with deck wash (twice), Mike spent hours sanding it all down, and then I started to tackle it with the wood stain. We're using Behr Solid Stain in "Redwood". It's only half done, but looking pretty good. It's still not functional (has to be moved, hooked up to electricity and filled with water) but we're one step closer.

Shhh, be very, very quiet...

A month late, I finally gave Mom her mother's day gift: a little felted bunny. She has this great little collection (about 4, I think) of rabbits in different materials (bronze, glass, pewter, ceramic), so I thought that this would make a nice addition. It's smaller than her other rabbits (about 2.5" nose to tail) and since it's head is a little larger than I hoped for, it has more of a "bunny" look than a "rabbit" look. But no matter - she's a mom so she loved it anyway.

Dig Monkeys, Dig!

So lucky to have had both Sara and Papa in town this last weekend, and to have the clouds part and the sun shine through!


In return for the pleasure of sleeping on our couch and eating my pretzels, they graciously volunteered to help dig out the largest of my front garden beds.

Drama king

She-Ra

Even hard workers need to take a break sometime.

We also fired the pizza oven up again, and even ventured to invite some guests over to enjoy with us.


Enjoy we did! Along with Anja, Alan and Lilly, we also enticed Remi over before her shift at the hospital. She had to leave before the full pizza consumption began, but we did send her off to care for our sick with a plate full of mini slices.

"Burr"

This is Burr; so named for the look of her hair.

This is my third doll (Doll #2 has found a happy home, and Doll #1 never made it onto the blog, as her proportions were a bit out of wack). I'm pretty happy with the general pattern that I'm using, so now I'm experimenting with creating clothes patterns.

This doll already has an extensive wardrobe, including a jacket, sweater, tank top, shorts, denim capris, ruby slippers and a book bag.

She won't be able to keep all those clothes to herself however.

Soon she will be joined by a couple of friends, at which point they will pack their bags and head across country to their new home!

Cob Oven: Let the Baking Begin!

Memorial Day weekend was such a bust weatherwise, but we were determined to get out there and try our new cob pizza oven. We're hoping to put it to good use this summer, but thought a trial run would be a good idea before we started inviting people over. While it's not completely finished (still needs a decorative layer and a door), it's definitely operational (with a little trial and error and a lot of pizza dough).

Mike preps the oven (ie: lights a fire, removes the hot coals and sweeps the ash out).

Test #1: a small piece of dough (we put cornmeal on the oven floor so that it wouldn't stick).

It was actually quite tasty (albeit a little on the crunchy side).

Test #2: Pizza!

While it looks beautiful, the oven was not hot enough so I ended up finishing the baking in the oven inside.

Mike rebuilt the fire (no photo, but imagine fire), cleans it out again and rechecks the oven temp with our new infrared thermometer.

Test #3: At 1000 degrees, we figured it was hot enough to try again (we waited til it cooled down a little).

Since we don't yet have a pizza paddle, this time we baked on the pan (with cornmeal between dough and pan) for ease of getting the pizza in and out of the oven.

Third time's a charm! At this point I was too full to eat any of it, but it did make for a very nice lunch the next day.

Another Day on the Slopes

This baby mobile was commissioned by Susanna for a friend’s baby, due in June.

There are three penguins from an Allison Hoffman pattern, and one penguin of my own design; this is a little boy in a penguin costume, trying to blend in with the skiing penguins.

Each penguin has a unique colored hat with a white pom-pom. The skis are craft sticks, painted, and attached to the penguin feet with velcro.

Susanna not only requested that the penguins be on skis, but that I include a gnome somewhere in the mobile as well. So the purple-hatted penguin is holding a needle-felted gnome.

The mobile hanger is the inner wooden frame of a 32” embroidery hoop; covered in crocheted cream yarn. The “snowballs” are 2 cm needle-felted wool balls from Handbehg Felts. These were a really good deal, and saved me from spending hours needle-felting balls. As is, this mobile took a significant amount of time. I never realized how tedious it is to crochet the same penguin three times.

Herbert Hoover and the Hipstamatic

Yesterday Mike and I took a drive out to Newberg; more specifically, to Herbert Hoover City Park. I was on a quest to take a photo of a footbridge for work, and decided to drag my husband along for company - and because Mike loves to take drives through the country.




Herbert Hoover Park is very small, but cute. It has a small frisbee golf course on it, and a canal (of sorts) that runs through it, so it includes 3 footbridges, all of different design.





All of these photos were taken on my iphone with the Hipstamatic app. I bought this app because Wendy, of Wendolonia, gushed so enthusiastically about it. And she wasn't wrong. It is a very cool photo app.

KOOZA!

A lovely photo of the happy couple

On Sunday we took our friends Ken and Ginger to see Cirque du Soleil "Kooza" down on the Portland South Waterfront.

We grabbed a quick bite beforehand at Jake's Famous Crawfish, and toasted thrice: to Ken's birthday, to their fast-approaching wedding (Friday) and to a new generation (due in September!).

Image from here

One of my favorite acts: the uber-flexible girls. I winced every time they started contorting.

Image from here

This guy was quite balanced - very zen. But I won't lie to you; I enjoyed looking at his butt, too.

Image from here

These guys were the act that made me gasp the most.

Image from here

Must.have.sweet.cheeks

Maxwell Gunter: smiley-est little munchkin I know.

Katie came to town to attend a training conference for work, so she left her two favorite boys at our house to entertain us: her husband, Jamie and 6-month-old son, Max.

I got very little done over the weekend, because I just couldn't keep my hands off of those sweet cheeks.

Cob Pizza Oven: Day Three

A long time coming - Day Three of the cob oven project actually occurred about a month ago, just 5 days after Day Two of the project. But due to a lost camera cord situation, the photos have been locked on the camera.

While I was at work, Clint and Bobby came back for another round on the oven with Mike. The goal was to get the sand form removed and the second layer on the oven.

Using a serrated weeding tool from Lowes (who knew it had so many uses), Bobby cut the front of the dome to create the oven opening, and all the sand from the sand form was scraped out.


This second layer was composed of straw, sawdust, water and more clay from the yard.

You can see the second layer creeping up over the first layer.

Almost done!

Over the last month we've been drying out the oven by lighting fires inside and exposing the outside to direct sunlight (as much as that's possible during springtime in the PNW). Once Bobby returns from his East Coast adventures, we'll begin work on the third, decorative layer, of the oven. We have lots of ideas, but haven't settled on anything just yet.
Here are a few images from other projects - great for inspiration:

Image from here

Image from here

Image from here, along with many, many other cool images - check them all out



Update: for Cob Oven Day 1, click here. For Cob Oven Day 2, click here. For Cob Oven baking, click here and here.